The Brothers Karamazov

By: Fyodor Dostoevsky, David Magarshack - translator

Narrated by: Gabriel Woolf

Length: 37 hrs and 50 mins

Publisher's summary

The Brothers Karamazov is the final novel by the Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky and is generally considered the culmination of his life's work. Published in November 1880, Dostoevsky spent nearly two years writing the novel set in 19th-century Russia.

Fydor Karamazov, a mean and disreputable landowner, has three sons, Dmitry, a profligate army officer; Ivan, a writer with revolutionary ideas; and Alexey, a religious novice. A drama of patricide and fraternal jealousy unfolds, involving the questions of anarchism and atheism, and giving a portrait of Russian society in the turbulent 1870s.

Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky (1821 - 1881) was a Russian fiction writer, essayist, and philosopher whose works have been acclaimed all over the world by thinkers as diverse as Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein.

Please note: This is a vintage recording. The audio quality may not be up to modern day standards.

Translated by David Magarshack

Public Domain (P)2009 RNIB

Painful to listen!! Don't buy this!

This is the *worst* narrator I've ever heard (so far). He has long (several seconds long) pauses after nearly every sentence as well as sometimes mid-sentence. At times it sounds as if he's eating, or choking on his saliva. There is no cadence to his speech, confusing voice inflection, no innovation for character voices and ZERO dedication to the story making it extremely difficult to follow. I agree with the reviewer who said he read 'as if he didn't care to'. I'm not terribly picky, I don't care if I hear pages turn or occasional background noise, but the *story* has to *sound good*. Usually the RNIB books are awesome, so don't let one horrendous read turn you off of the rest.

This is extremely poor quality

Would you try another book from Fyodor Dostoevsky and David Magarshack (translator) and/or Gabriel Woolf?

Dostoevsky is great, the translation passable, but the reading is amaturish. Slow, strange pauses, stumbling. The chapter breaks are random and poorly organized

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Brothers Karamazov?

This is a pointless question. The novel is fabulous, this production is robbery

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Gabriel Woolf?

Somebody who is professional

What character would you cut from The Brothers Karamazov?

irrelevant question

Any additional comments?

This is a horrible rendering and not worth the money - I suspect even the Librivox version would be better

stultifyingly dull

achingly slow plot, very bad reading, lots of un-needed pauses ums and uhhs. poor job

narrator is awful at best

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Gabriel Woolf?

I would rather hear Foghorn Leghorn narrate the story. You can clearly hear Gabriel Woolf drinking coffee (or tea), smacking his lips, and breathing heavy. All very distracting. I couldn't make it half way through the first part.

Terrible reading

What would have made The Brothers Karamazov better?

A narrator who takes the time to rehearse and learn the text.

What did you like best about this story?

Brilliant insight into human nature and society.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

This is the second-worst professionally produced audio book I have ever tried to listen to. The author… while having a lovely voice… hesitates… and… seems to have no sense of meter or... inflection? One could even hear him belch under his breath in one passage very eary in teh book.

chapters are too long and difficult to bookmark

the book is a great classic, but the narrator is poor without great reading ability, often has too suck back saliva. the chapters are broken up very awkwardly so it is hard to re-listen to small sections to refreshen where i last left off as i pick up the story again. being over 40 hours long it's impossible to listen to it at one sitting! the inexpensive cost reflects the quality. i purchased the other recording today, which costs > $40 but it is so much better!

I tried

I'm sorry but I just don't care for Ol' Dusty as Nabokov called him. C&P and Notes from Underground were tough going as well, but I've found BK to be unrelentingly boring. The narrator is fine, but the story is so bogged down by religion and incidents I just don't accept that whatever payoff there might be at the end is just not worth the slog for me. Gravity's Rainbow was long and tough and crazy at times, but at least something happened. I love going through the classics and great literature, but maybe the long winded Russians are not for me. (I have trouble with Dickens endless blathering as well) Give me Moby Dick anytime, by far the best novel I've ever read. Or Nabokov, I wish they'd get some of his novels narrated, next to Moby, is all of Nabokov in my opinion.

one of the worst narrators

I intend to download another version with a better reader. This one has a disdainful British accent, and reads as if he did not care to. He has no sense of cadence and rhythm, and does not care to attempt to read it as Dostoevsky might have intended it. He has long, awkward and inappropriate pauses and thick and loud swallowing noises in the middle of sentences. Don't get this version. Another death by narrator.